The Primitive Church.
II. I pass, then, to the next point—the alleged absence of Subscription in the primitive age. Not content with the reference to the history of our own Church, Dr. Stanley says:—“I will not confine myself to these isolated instances, but examine the history of Subscription from the first. For the first three centuries the Church was entirely without it.” “The first Subscription to a series of dogmatical propositions as such was that enforced by Constantine at the Council of Nicæa. It was the natural, but rude, expedient of a half-educated soldier to enforce unanimity in the Church as he had by the sword enforced it in the empire.” (p. 35). Again, I am painfully compelled to meet the statements of Dr. Stanley with a direct negative. The case is not as he states it. A “rude soldier,” in those days—(when comparatively few people wrote at all)—would not, I think, have been likely to invent this “expedient:” but, in fact, he did not invent it.
Council against Paulus Samosatemus.
I do not suppose for a moment that Dr. Stanley could care to make a merely technical statement as to the mode in which adhesion was signified to a dogmatic series of propositions. No merely formal position of that kind could serve the argument. The position which he lays down must be that, before the time of Constantine, there was that freedom allowed which is demanded by those who object to Subscription now,—that people were not, in those days, called on to profess their belief in any set of “dogmatical” statements as tests of orthodoxy. If, then, he will look back sixty-six years before the Council of Nicæa, to the Council of Antioch (of which Constantine was quite innocent), against Paul of Samosata, there he will find the copy of a letter from certain orthodox bishops, Hymenæus, Theophilus, Theoctenus, Maximus, Proclus, and Bolanus, setting forth a series of dogmatical propositions, more minute and lengthened than those of Nicæa, and concluding with these words—Ταῦτα ἀπὸ πλείστων ὀλίγα σημειωσάμενοι, Βουλόμεθα μαθεῖν, εἰ τὰ αὐτὰ φρονεῖς ἡμῖν καὶ διδάσκεις, καὶ ὑποσημειώσασθαι σε, εἰ ἀρέσκη, τοῖς προγεγραμμένοις, ῆ οὐ. If he would not write, he must make his mark—give some sign, at all events—whether he “held and taught” as there set forth in writing (προγεγραμμένοις)—yes or no; or submit to lose his office in the Church—(καθαιρεθῆναι.)—Routh’s Rel. ii. p. 465, &c.
Council against Noetus.
A few years earlier, the case of Noetus was treated in a similar way. The assembled Presbyters, after confessing the orthodox faith, cast out the heretic for not submitting to it. The Council of Eliberis, in Spain (before the Nicene Council), put out eighty-one canons, or chapters, of a mixed kind, dogmatical and disciplinary, “et Post Subscriptiones Episcoporum in vetusto codice Urgelensi leguntur sequentes presbyterorum,” &c.—Routh, iv. 44. Doctrine of Novatian severity is there put forth: I refer to it not for any other purpose than to adduce the fact of Subscription—(and Subscription, too, in the presence of the laity),—or at least the fact, that there was no authorized laxity in those days, such as Dr. Stanley’s argument requires.
Discipline in the Church.
And here I would remark, my Lord, on the obvious difference between a state of the Church in which there was a system of Discipline holding together the whole body, and a condition like our own, when Discipline is acknowledged to be extinct among us. When bishops met together periodically, as they then did, to regulate the affairs of the Church,—and stood in mutual awe of each other’s spiritual powers;—when dismissal from Communion was a chastisement shrunk from, by laity and clergy, with terror,—it might have been easy to do without such Subscriptions as now attempt to guard the orthodoxy of our people. So again in the Pre-Reformation Church; the organization of the hierarchy, and the necessary submission of the people, might often render Subscriptions more than superfluous—unintelligible. Let those who would take away the present Subscription to our Prayer-book, restore to us, in a fair measure, the active Discipline of the Apostolic and post Apostolic times, and I for one will thankfully hail the change. But to ask to return to the “first three centuries,”—bristling as they do with canons, synodical and episcopal letters, and declarations,—because a volume was not then presented for the signature of every candidate for Orders,—is as reasonable as it would be to propose now to abolish printing, and go back to the simplicity and “freedom” of oral instruction and the scantiest of manuscript literature. There is no fallacy more glittering, but none more unworthy, illogical, and self-condemning than that of false historical parallel. And I again must ask your Lordship, whether Dr. Stanley’s appeal to the Primitive History has not wholly failed?—I have briefly shown that Constantine was not the originator of Subscriptions to creeds or canons, but that subscribing or professing dogmatic assent was a Christian custom of the earlier ages. It is plain to every one who knows the history, e.g., of a great bishop like St. Cyprian or St. Irenæus, or of a great writer like Tertullian or Origen, that to guard dogmatically against heresy, by every means in their power, was the predominating idea of their whole course, however imperfectly attained; and they would have been utterly astounded if any one had foretold that in a future age of the Church, when all Discipline had been destroyed among Christ’s people, a Professor of History would appeal to their example as a justification of the proposal to excuse all ministers of Christ from signing any Articles of Faith!
Roman Catholic Subscription.
But when we are even told by Dr. Stanley (p. 36, n.) that, “from the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church no declaration of belief is required at their Ordination,” we almost cease to be surprised at his allegations respecting the ante-Nicene age. One would have thought it very little trouble to look into the present Roman Pontifical, and see the service for Ordination of Priests, before making any such statement. Unless Dr. Stanley’s copy is very different from mine—(Antverpiæ Ex-officina Plantiniana Balthasaris Moreti, 1663)—he will read thus:—
“Pontifex, accepta mitra, vertit se ad presbyteros ordinatos qui ante altare coram ipso stantes profitentur Fidem quam prædicaturi sunt, dicentes Credo, &c., &c.”
Protestant Subscriptions.
I think that I need add no more on this head: but I will refer to the Subscriptions of Protestant Churches, before I pass on. It is very commonly said at present that “Subscription” does not secure the Uniformity of opinion which it aims at, and thus shows itself to be as useless as it is vexatious,—(as if, forsooth, any one supposed that absolute uniformity of thought could be attained by any means in the world). Dr. Stanley has not omitted this; but once more I must hold him to facts.
“It was one of the misfortunes,” (he says, p. 36) “incident to the Reformation, that every Protestant Church by way of defending itself against the enemies that hemmed it in, or that were supposed to hem it in on every side, was induced to compile each for itself a new Confession of Faith.”—This is scarcely doing justice to our Protestant friends, in limine. They had to do something more than defend themselves against enemies; they had to form some bond of union among themselves. If they were not to be merely scattered units, to be attracted in time to the largest bodies near them, they were obliged to find some principle of cohesion among themselves; and they who refuse to allow them to make “articles” or “confessions” ought in charity to suggest some other plan. To have separated from a compact body like the Roman Church and profess nothing positive, was surely an impossible course.—But Dr. Stanley further says, “The excess of Subscription on the continent over-leaped itself and has led to its gradual extinction, or modification.” (p. 37.)
It seems to me a very narrow philosophy which thus disposes of so great a fact as this, that “every Protestant Church” had this sort of instinct of life and self-preservation. Is it not as legitimate at least to infer that there may have been something in the very nature of things to prompt this unanimity of action? And is there no lesson to be learned from the undoubted fact that none of the Protestant communities have preserved their original standard, but have descended towards neology everywhere in proportion as “Subscription” has been set aside? and that the Church of England has for three hundred years exhibited a singular uniformity of belief, while maintaining her Subscriptions? Practically, I see nothing, then, in the example of Foreign Protestantism to encourage the proposed relaxation; but everything the reverse. Even the small and diminishing bodies of Nonconformists in England have failed, (notwithstanding their gaining in orthodoxy by their proximity to us), to keep up their reputation,—as their ablest men allow. But what would have been their condition, if, like ourselves, they had had no Discipline? [24] Surely in their efforts at holy Discipline they all bear a witness for Christ which puts us to shame.
Let Dr. Stanley, if he can, find any Christian body without Discipline—without Confessions, without Articles, without Subscriptions, which has been able to preserve itself at all; for until he does so, we must tell him that all the facts are against him.
Alleged practical evils of Subscription.
III. I now, my Lord, must pass to the third topic, in the consideration of which I thought to include all that remains in Dr. Stanley’s pamphlet which could be supposed by any to be of argumentative value—viz., the alleged practical evils of “Subscription” in the Church and the University. Here I feel that our English people will take a deeper interest in the matter, than in any antiquarian or historical disquisitions; and here Dr. Stanley and his friends speak with a confidence which with many will pass at once for demonstration. And if there were grounds to suppose that a method of Subscription, like ours, worked such mischief as they say who call for this change, no traditions of the Revolution, or of the Reformation, or of the Primitive Church, ought to tempt us to retain it. But let us not put the matter in an unreal light, while pretending to go back to former and better days. Freedom to think as you please in Religion, while retaining your place in the Church, was never conceded at any of the times to which Dr. Stanley has appealed; but was foreign to the principles of every class of Christians. Yet if the evils of Subscriptions are such as we are now assured, things cannot be suffered to remain as they are.
But broad assertions can frequently be only met by like broad assertions; and I hope that I shall not be thought disrespectful if I thus treat some now before me.
“Contradictoriness” of the Articles and Prayer-book.
(1.) It is said that the Subscriptions are made to documents “contradictory to each other in spirit;” (p. 22) and that this is felt by those who are called on to sign the Prayer-book, and the Articles;—the former being devotional and sublime, the latter scholastic, and less impressive;—the former emanating from ancient sources, the latter being the product “of the Calvinistic, and in some measure even the Scholastic period.” (pp. 16, 17.) This is popularly but scarcely correctly put; but I would ask, whether the difference between the “two documents” is greater than between Aquinas’ Summa, and his Pange Lingua?—or between any man’s didactic statements and his devotional offices? And if not, then how cannot the same man honestly sign both—each in its plain and obvious sense? Personally, I do not feel the least difficulty in the case; and I cannot recollect meeting with any clergyman who could sign the one, and yet had difficulty about the other, except as to a few phrases here and there. The general “contradictoriness,” which is affirmed by Dr. Stanley, I believe then is not commonly perceived by the Clergy, and I do not myself perceive any other difference than the nature of the case demands. The purely Theological language of the earlier Articles—then the mixed statements of the “anthropology,” as it is called—and the terms of the Sacramental Articles,—may almost in every instance be traced in Catholic fathers, from St. Augustine to St. Bernard. And yet they are not recondite, but so intelligible to educated English people, that some years ago as a matter of edification I went through them, with a class of fifty of the laity in my parish, and a few clergy, who for several weeks were glad to devote attention to the subject; and I venture to think that the idea never occurred to one of us, that there was the least want of harmony between the two documents. We really did not see the “calm image of Cranmer” reflected on the surface of the “Liturgy,” as Lord Macaulay fancied he did (p. 18); and as to the “foul weeds in which the roots were buried,” we did not discover them there;—(nor did Lord Macaulay, I suppose, as it was not his custom to go to these “roots.”) I think I am entitled, then, to meet the charge of the “contradictoriness” of the Articles and the Prayer-book, with an assertion that there is a thorough inward harmony, which not a few of us feel; and we cannot be talked out of this conviction by the contrary assertions of microscopic thinkers. I should grant, of course, that it would be a “practical evil” of no small kind, demanding immediate redress, if I could admit any real opposition between the Formularies which we have to sign. But I unreservedly deny it. I know indeed what objectors would mean when they say this: but I know also that the same objectors would find “contradictoriness” in different parts of Holy Scripture; and I am thankful that I do not find it, after many years’ steady work at both Old Testament and New.
The early age of those who “subscribe.”
(2.) Another alleged grievance, or “practical evil,” is said to be the age [28] at which young men are called on to make these important professions of their belief. I had, many years since, to encounter the same objection in another form. I met with some among the Baptists, who objected to teaching children to “say their prayers,” on the ground that they could not understand the mysterious subjects implied; and others who would not ask them to believe any thing in Religion, until they had proved it. The “practical evil” is—and I am sure that your Lordship will agree with me—altogether on the side of those who leave the young thus to make their own opinions, and find their faith how they can. The Bible is, in many respects, a more complex book than the Prayer-book; and yet I can ask my child to put entire faith in it, as God’s Word. Nor can the faithful Churchman, I believe, feel any difficulty in giving into the hands of young and old, the Formularies which have been his own comfort and help hitherto, and asking their “assent and consent” to all that which he knows to be true.
Men of ability will not take Holy Orders.
(3.) There is a “practical evil,” which has of late been greatly pressed on public notice, which Dr. Stanley thus refers to (p. 30)—“Intelligent, thoughtful, highly educated young men, who twenty or thirty years ago were to be found in every Ordination, are gradually withheld from the service of the Church, and from the profession to which their tastes, their characters, and their gifts, best fit them.”
This is an evil, the existence of which I shall not question—it is indeed too plain, and too alarming to admit of any doubt. But I deny that it has any foundation in the practice of Subscription; which has not been changed, or made more rigid, in our days. I have never known one conscientious, thoughtful young churchman kept from Holy Orders by a shrinking from Subscription. They who have shrunk have been persons who differ from the Church, and acknowledge the fact. They have been men, like my upright friend Mr. Fisher,—the author of “Liturgical Revision,”—who would not, for all the temptations that might be offered, use the entire Offices of our Church, even if ordained immediately without Subscription. Subscription keeps them out, of course. It is meant to do so, if it has any meaning at all. But if we look around us at the state of things in the Church, during the twenty or thirty years to which Dr. Stanley alludes, we shall not find it difficult to ascertain causes which have kept, and will keep, so many intelligent and conscientious minds of the higher order, from entering the ministry of the Church. Young men of ability in the last generation, if designed for Holy Orders, gave themselves to Theological study. But we all remember the panic which arose in consequence of the secessions to the Roman Church. Public patronage and popular feeling were then so successfully worked on, by the fanatical portion of the press, that the bare rumour of “Theological learning” was enough to mark any Churchman for suspicion. Parents who did not wish their more gifted sons to be victims, chose for them other callings, and found a thousand new and attractive openings in the Civil service. Youths of greatest promise saw encouragement in other professions, and rewards in the distance for successful merit; but if they began to read Theology, they soon found themselves obliged to pause. To read St. Augustine, till you began to believe the ancient doctrine of Baptism, was fatal: to study Church history, or the Liturgies, was still worse,—if men did it honestly. Hundreds, I believe, were thus beaten off. Parents and guardians and friends could not desire social and professional neglect—if not worse—for those in whom they were interested. They saw and said, that “there was but little chance for a clever man,” if he had the stigma of high ability or learning. If such a man as Dr. Mill—to whose writings men readily seek, now that the infidel is at our doors—if he died in comparative obscurity and neglect, what could others look for? The evil is done, and none now living will see it completely undone.—
To crush the principles of old Churchmanship was not, however, a task to which the rising intellect of Oxford would lend itself; it retired and left that work to others; or it strayed into German literature, whither the popular hatred had not yet learned to track it: and now the wail goes forth from “Charge” after “Charge,” that men of higher minds have fled, or turned “neologians!” Is there no Nemesis here?—A few years since, the Church’s rapid descent from her position of ancient learning was regarded with a quiet despair by some even of our most thoughtful men. A late dignitary even expressed “thankfulness” on one occasion at some moderate-looking promotion that had been made in high places, and he was remonstrated with by one who knew the entire ignorance of theology of the clergyman who had just been honoured. “Why, he is wholly ignorant of Christianity!” was, I believe, the exclamation. “Yes,” was the answer, “but he is not hostile to it.”
But will any relaxation of “Subscription”—will the destruction of the Articles, or the Revision of the Liturgy by “the Association” set up of late, bring back Theological learning, or tempt the “higher minds” into the Church’s ranks? No one can imagine it. A great misfortune has happened to us, and the way to repair it is not easily seen; but it is something to see the evil itself. The Romanizing movement was a great misfortune: we all deplore it, even those who know that it was provoked by the narrow-minded treatment which it received. But the loss of Theology and high intellect is a greater misfortune by far; and this will be yet found, when the dulness of a coming generation has to defend the Bible apart from the Church.